I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the pressure we feel to know where we’re going in life. How little room we leave for mystery, curiosity, the unknown, magic. I’ve had several conversations lately with people in transition, some have been thrown into unexpected and unwanted change, others have a deeper sense that there is more for them and so they’ve set out to find out what that more feels, looks, tastes like. What they all have in common is the sense that they “should” know or pressure to “just decide and get on with it.”

Why does not knowing where you are going in life make people around you so squeamish? Why are people scared when someone admits they don’t know what they want to do or where they want to go in life? It’s as if people simply can’t stand uncertainty in others for more than a few moments, and if you linger “too long” in the Land of Uncertainty, they write you off as unstable or immature, or one of those people who “doesn’t have it together.”

How together are we supposed to be? Career, marriage, home ownership, children, their college, retirement savings. Maybe squeeze a few days of vacation in there somewhere. Follow the path and everyone stays comfortable, right? Why? Because then others don’t have to second guess their choices in life. They can stay on the path and settle for the happiness it offers up, instead of going out there and defining happiness for themselves. It’s just easier (or so we are taught) to stay small and conventional and safe. Since everyone else believes this path is paved with gold, it feels warm and comfortable.

Until it doesn’t. Or something stops working. And a part of you wakes up and realizes there just might be other paths.

Granted, some of the traditional path can indeed bring you genuine happiness. And a life on another path doesn’t necessarily guarantee you’ll be any happier. But what staying on the safe path does is keep you from realizing how powerful you truly are – it keeps you from playing big, from reaching for genuine joy instead of settling for others’ definition of purpose and destination. It keeps you from ever finding out how much of an impact you can actually make on this journey on earth.

Don’t you want to find out? What if life can really be more meaningful, joy-filled, driven by a purpose led by Spirit? What if these times of transition are not times of being “lost” – but instead absolute gifts that allow you to rebuild and redesign your life to be even better than before?

I’ve always followed intuition more than logic, and I can honestly say doing so has never led me wrong. Down uncertain paths that were unknown? Yes. Through months, sometimes years of sensing where I might be going, but not seeing how everything fit? Yes. Along detours that actually turned out to be the path I was meant to be on? Yes. I’ve lived in the Land of Uncertainty. I know what it feels like. I’ve built up a tolerance for it; I’ve seen time and again how the Universe works its magic and delivers something far better than I could ever come up with on my own.

So, I trust it. I know the periods of blindness in life are just as important as the periods of vision. I know that after the darkness the light will come – it always comes. I know that it takes patience and faith and that you have to fight to choose patience and faith, over and over and over again. But the fight is worth it.

Not knowing where you are going is a sign that you are indeed right where you need to be. Now. You are led, not by desperation or taking action because fear is driving you, but because the Universe works to orchestrate everything needed to bring you to the next place.

And remember, the Universe always works for the highest good for the most people possible. It’s NOT all about YOU, as much as it IS about you. Sometimes we are held in place because there is someone else our life needs to bless before we can move on.